Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

While the nation grapples with wars overseas and health care reform at home, climate change legislation is steadily making its way through Congress. The House of Representatives already passed a climate package; the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works passed their own legislation, dubbed the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

The legislation would create a cap and trade program targeted at greenhouse gas emissions, push forward carbon capture and storage research, and appropriate funds for a variety of climate and energy-related work at EPA, the Department of Energy, and other agencies. The Congressional Budget Office just completed a cost estimate of the bill to determine budget and deficit impacts. The estimate, worth reading in its entirety here, finds the bill would:

• Increase federal revenues by about $854 billion; and
• Increase direct spending by about $833 billion.

In total, those changes would reduce budget deficits (or increase future surpluses) by about $21 billion over the 2010-2019 period. (All estimated effects would be on-budget.) In years after 2019, direct spending would be less than the net revenues attributable to the legislation in each of the 10-year periods following 2019. Therefore, CBO estimates that enacting S. 1733 would not increase the deficit in any of the four 10-year periods following 2019.

Has the Stimulus Package Worked?

Has the stimulus package worked? It's a question that many inside and outside of government have been asking for a long time. It will likely be some time before anyone is able to say with minimal uncertainty. That said, a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has attempted to provide an answer, at least in terms of job creation. There is still significant uncertainty, however.

The CBO writes in its report (PDF available here):

Recipients report that about 640,000 jobs were created or retained with ARRA funding through September 2009. Such reports, however, do not provide a comprehensive estimate of the law’s impact on employment in the United States. That impact may be higher or lower than the reported number for several reasons (in addition to any issues about the quality of the data in the reports).

Another resource on the stimulus package is this excellent overview (PDF) of fiscal stimulus policy by the Congressional Research Service.

Health Care Bills & Premiums

It's not easy to keep up with all the analyses of the various health care proposals in Congress, but here is an interesting report (PDF) that addresses the impact of the current Senate bill on premiums. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates different impacts for different insurance purchasers:

The effects of the proposal on premiums would differ across insurance markets (see Table 1). The largest effects would be seen in the nongroup market, which would grow in size under the proposal but would still account for only 17 percent of the overall insurance market in 2016. The effects on premiums would be much smaller in the small group and large group markets, which would make up 13 percent and 70 percent of the total insurance market, respectively.

CBO estimates that higher impacts would happen for non-group purchasers than for employer-based group insurance purchasers, who could see a small increase or decrease in premiums. The full report is worth checking out.

Jobs and Growth

With the recession dragging on for many individuals, and the unemployment rate hovering around 10%, there is talk of new legislation to further stimulate job creation. This begs the question, how effective is policy in counteracting the business cycle and creating positive employment outcomes?

Much work has been done on the subject of employment policy and the workforce. Here's a partial reading list for those who are interested. The President's chief economic adviser, Christina Romer, co-authored one paper on the subject in the '90s that gives a good overview of federal responses to recessions; the Government Accountability Office has done extensive work reviewing the Workforce Investment Act; the National Renewable Energy Lab has looked at the economic and employment effects of renewable energy on a state-by-state basis; and the CBO has performed some macroeconomic analysis of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the stimulus bill.

Fall Depository Library Conference Meeting, 2009

Now, you can read all about the Fall Depository Meeting whether you attend it or not. The full descriptions of the presentations are available here.

One of the most interesting sessions was "Demystifying Digital Depository: What it is and What it could do for the future of the FDLP." The concept of a digital depository system is that each depository library stores its selected digital documents on its local server in order to ensure access and long-term preservation. This practice would provide additional protection against any financial risk that no single system such as GPO FDsys can provide alone. View this site for the further discussion including the methods of storing documents locally.

Housing Market Report

A major driver of the current financial crisis is the burst housing bubble; many have asked the question, why did the housing market collapse?

The Atlanta Fed Reserve attempts to answer this question in a new study, "Decomposing the Foreclosure Crisis: House Price Depreciation versus Bad Underwriting." In this study, the authors build a model employing exhaustive housing and mortgage data from the past two decades, and then focus on the housing market experience in Massachusetts to try to gain some insight into root causes. The authors come to an interesting conclusion:

We argue that relaxed underwriting standards did severely aggravate the crisis by creating a class of homeowners who were particularly vulnerable to the decline in prices. But, as we show in our counterfactual analysis, that emergence alone, in the absence of a price collapse, would not have resulted in the substantial foreclosure boom that was experienced.

Chesapeake Bay Bill Committee Report

The environmental status and health of the Chesapeake Bay has long been a source of concern for many in our region. There is currently a bill in Congress that attempts to address these issues, by directing OMB and EPA to undertake budgeting and planning for restoration and management.

The bill was approved by the House Committee on Natural Resources over the summer; the House Committee report (PDF) on the bill has just been added to GPO's online catalog. Follow the link to learn more about the bill's provisions, background, and legislative history to date.

Filibusters and Cloture

Senator Joe Lieberman (CT) has been in the news lately for his stance on health care reform and whether or not he'll vote for cloture or filibuster any proposals. So...what do these terms all mean?

For an answer, look to this report (PDF) from the Congressional Research Service on cloture and the filibuster. It provides excellent, readable background on what these procedural tactics are and the effects they can have on the legislative process. It was published in 2003, but still very relevant today.

House Hearing Report on Combating Gangs

In light of the recent major drug raids across North America, here you can find a related report from the Government Accountability Office to the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Titled "Combating Gangs: Better Coordination and Performance Measurement Would Help Clarify Roles of Federal Agencies and Strengthen Assessment of Efforts," the report addresses the roles of various federal departments and law enforcement agencies in combating gang crime, including coordination, performance measurement, and funding.

The report ultimately recommends that the Department of Justice:

...reexamine roles of headquarters anti-gang entities, establish performance measures for antigang efforts, review [US District Attorney] gang-related case data, and, along with [the Department of Homeland Security], develop a common definition for “gang.”

The report also states that the Homeland Security Department agrees with these recommendations.

Oklahoma State Library Named the Best in the Nation

GPO named the Oklahoma Dept. of Libraries as the 2009 Federal Depository Library of the Year. See the story more at http://www.gpo.gov/pdfs/news-media/press/09news42.pdf

Federal Register in XML format

Federal Register is now available in XML format, which makes them easier to use. The register is easily accessible from FDsys (Federal Digital System)from 1994 on.

President Obama's Health Care Reform Address

to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9 is available (text & Video) on GPO Federal Digital System (FDsys), a one-stop site to authentic, published Government information.

->Link to President's Address
->Link to Video

Swine Flue again.

I am forwarding some flu guidances that our Education Liaison Librarian sent out since that influenza is currently more active:

* New CDC H1N1 Guidance for Colleges, Universities, and Institutions
of Higher Education <http://digbig.com/5bafcc>

* Updated Guidance for Businesses and Employers for the Fall Flu
Season <http://digbig.com/5bafcd>

* Updated Federal Guidelines for 2009 H1N1 Influenza in Schools Offer
Many Options <http://digbig.com/5bafce>

* Influenza A(H1N1) and Pandemic Preparedness Under the Rule of
International Law <http://digbig.com/5bafcf>

* Prevention and Control of Seasonal Influenza with Vaccines -
Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
(ACIP), 2009 <http://digbig.com/5bafcg>

World Bank Climate Data Portal

provides quick climate and climate related data for policy makers and development participants. The Web site is at http://beta.worldbank.org/climatechange/ and includes a data visualization tool.

Site Maps Stimulus Spending

Do you want to know: how much funding is being distributed to each state, how much funding is being provided to each state by each federal department, how the funding is flowing to individual contractors, and how many jobs are being created in the locations? See the new mapping feature of Recovery.gov.

Asksam: Obama Speech ebook

A free searchable collection of Barack Obama speeches from 2002-present is available from Asksam. Please check out:
+ State of the Nation-Speech to Congress on 02/24/2009
+ First 100 Days-Address to Nation on 04/29/2009
+ Cairo Speech-Cairo, Egypt Address on 06/04/2009.

2008 Notable Government Documents

from May issue of Library Journal. Included are Atlas of Global Development, Black American People (1870-1989), U.S. Marines in Iraq, Civics and Citizenship Toolkit, the Little Acorn, and The World Cruise of the Great Fleet. All of them are available through GMU. Please check out our catalog.

Latin American Government Documents Archive

The Latin American Network Information Center, part of the University of Texas at Austin has been archiving Latin American government publications and websites since 2005 through the Archive-It web archiving service. The collection includes Latin American Government publications in print or Printed out the early websites. It preserves the publications and official government websites. Please enjoy the collection.

National Government Statistics Collection

National Government Statistics Collection, part of the Indiana University Bloomington Libraties's Archive it documents project, provides a comprehensive collection of web sites of statistical agencies of 150 countries including Africa, Central Eurasis, East Asia, Latin America, Russia, East Europe, and more. It includes data, reports, statistical yearbooks, methodological guides, and other information.

DATA.gov

Please visit DATA.gov. This is "to increase public access to machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government" You can search the database by category and agency(source: govdoc-l).

OpenJurist.org

is an open access database to US Supreme Court and Federal Applellate opinion. It includes the Federal Reporter-US Court of Appeals and US States Reports-US supreme Court Cases. Please see whether this is a good fit for your online research guide: http://openjurist.org (source; govdoc-l).

Swine Flu Flashback

Take a look at this infoguide about Swine Flu that a librarian at BGSU created: The Swine Flu Scare of 1976 at http://libguides.bgsu.edu/SwineFlu This is a bibliography of U.S. government publications about the event accompanied by a brief article summarizing events.

National Security Archive

This Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States. Please check it out at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

AskSam: search Economic Stimulus Bill

You can search the full text transcripts of more than 200 speeches by President Obama from 2002-present: http://www.asksam.com/ebooks/obama-speeches/

Also you can search the economic stimulus bill: http://www.asksam.com/ebooks/stimulus

FDsys Public Beta Released

GPO's Future Digital System (FDsys) is now available as a public beta. The information on GPO Access is in the process of being migrated to FDsys and the process will be complete in mid-2009. Please try this system and send your feedback to GPO to improve the capabilities of FDsys.

"Show Us the Data"

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) of Open the Government.org recently launched a new website, "Show Us the Data" to allow the public to decide what government information not available on the Internet that should be. CRS reports, Bailout Funds, and Department of Justice Patriot Act Usage are currently most requested documents in order. Do not miss this chance to have your opinions heard. Also paralle to this project is transparency.gov and recovery.gov that intended to insure transparency of stimulus funding...

DOT joined Science.gov

The Science.gov gateway now includes the DOT National Transportation Library (NTL) Integrated Search and more than 30 DOT websites including TRIS online, NTK Digital Repsotioy, and other Transportation Websites. So now you can find science information from 14 government agencies!

Inaugural Address posted.

President Obama's Inaugural address is posted at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/read_the_inaugural_address/ and the video will be added soon in case you missed it.